


Her Specialty

by ZeldaByrdeBishop



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Caligari Spell, alludes to non-consensual sexual acts, embalming, proceed with caution if your squeemish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26107135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeldaByrdeBishop/pseuds/ZeldaByrdeBishop
Summary: Ambrose discovers Zelda in the embalming room, using her special odd method to cope with the trauma of the Caligari Spell
Relationships: Ambrose Spellman & Zelda Spellman
Comments: 5
Kudos: 47





	Her Specialty

_Dr. Caligari: “Don’t hold back - Ask away!”_

_Alan: “How long will I live?”_

_Cesare: “Until the break of dawn.”_

_-The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari_

Ambrose looked up from the amber pages of his book on the Histories of the Crusades, trying to find it in himself to fall asleep due to the early morning hour, when he heard a small clink from the embalming room beside his attached study. Rattles and clinks were not uncommon in the embalming room. The bodies they housed were even prone to gas emissions and screams on any given Tuesday, but this clink sounded different, let alone the fact that they held no bodies at the moment. 

He silently set the book down and rose from his chair to press his ear to the door. There were a few more clinks as someone moved around the embalming room, the smell of formaldehyde wafting under the door as a few sniffles rung in the air.

There was only one person Ambrose knew who would embalm at 3:30 in the morning. He eased the door open to see his Auntie Zee in an apron hunkered over the embalming table, a magnifying monocle in her eye as black gloved hands pinned the wings of a dead chickadee to a piece of styrofoam her lower lip contorted, trying to keep in the sobs that begged to escape. 

He frowned and walked over to grab a second stool, pulling the metal seat over to sit beside his Aunt, who quickly wiped away a few stray tears that fell, but said nothing to the boy. 

Ambrose watched as his Aunt expertly cut open the bird. Her hand was steady despite her sniffles as she removed the birds organs one by one, inspecting them with dulled toothpicks before labeling them and pinning them to a small foam board. Ambrose had always admired his aunt’s precision in the process. She claimed that the student had become the master many years ago, but Ambrose knew this couldn’t be true. Nothing was as precise and beautiful as the way his aunt slaved over the bodies they used to receive when he’d arrived at the mortuary with Hilda. He didn’t think that pumping fluids into a corpse could be so...religious, but it was when his aunt did it. Every move had a purpose that was beyond preservation and that was something he’d never managed to learn. 

He stood up and got a small dish of soapy water and some Q-Tips, sitting back down to gently clean off each of the organs as she extracted them. 

They worked in silence as she dissected the small bird, her sniffles slowly fading as she became more focused on her work. Her vision entirely directed through the circle of the monocle as she kept as much of the bird intact as possible. The bird’s circulatory system entwined within the bird as its bones left a sturdy cage for Zelda to play in. 

The blue tinted lights above them flickered and buzzed as she got up once all of the organs had been extracted and properly labeled in her elegant script, digging into the back of a small cabinet to pull out a strange pointed instrument. 

Ambrose wanted to ask what it was, but he didn’t want to break the silence. The tip was so very small it seemed to point into nothingness and his aunt sat back down with it firm in her hand, regarding the delicate object as if it were as strong as a brazen knife. She dialed the monocle- increasing the magnification and then slowly inserted the instrument into the bird’s nostril beginning to move the instrument around, scrambling it’s brains. Then she began to use what must be a basically microscopic hook on the end of the instrument to pull out bits of the bird’s brain, section by section, threading the rubbery pieces through the tiny nostril until no more could be pulled.

“Ambrose...a needle and thread, please.”

He obliged, trying not to think too hard about the scrambled bird brain on the table, not even set in a dish - just left beside the bird. 

She took the needle and thread he provided and began to sew the bird together, using the bird’s bones to hold the body together until it was sewn together so tightly that one would have no idea it had even been cut open. 

She held out her hand without taking her eyes off the bird. He handed her the embalming fluid she’d prepared and the syringe she’d left next to it. She uncapped the syringe and filled it with the embalming liquid, sticking the needle into the bird’s nostril, beginning to fill it with the fluid. 

It was fascinating to watch as she filled the syringe over and over, gently tapping the bird’s growing stomach until the bird was filled like a water balloon, the fluid beginning to seep out of its nostrils, fighting the tension of being filled to the brim. 

His aunt stood up, setting the tools to the side before taking off her gloves and the monocle, admiring her handiwork. Ambrose wasn’t sure what this was supposed to accomplish, especially considering she’d left all of the bird’s organs outside the body, but after watching his Aunt taxidermize Vinnie T, he knew it would be best not to question his Aunt’s odd coping practices. Their coven had gone through quite a bit and now the remaining members all slept above them, healing from her husband’s poison trick. He determined this seemed enough stress to justify making an embalming fluid water balloon out of a bird. 

He watched as his aunt moved to the book shelf, picking out a large novel detailing the human anatomy. She walked back over to the bird and looked down at it and the organs she’d set aside. 

“Ambrose….step back.”

He frowned deeply but quickly moved back and just in time as Zelda slammed the book down exploding the bird, sending the embalming fluid shooting out in a star pattern all over the table and her apron.

He watched her stunned as she lifted the book to expose the destroyed bird, setting the book to the side as she stared at it. 

“........Are you alright Auntie?” 

She didn’t look at him as she removed the gloves, and her apron, setting them on the counter behind her before turning back to the bird, crossing her arms, her voice defeated. 

“I didn’t think he had it in him.”

The buzzing of the fluorescent lights above them wizzed. 

Who?

“We spoke of going to Italy for our honeymoon as children. We were going to take a year and simply travel the world, like I’d always wanted…… and then-” His aunt’s hands held the table’s edge on either side of the splattered bird. 

“I wish he’d had the courtesy to pull my brains out first…”

Ambrose took a few tentative steps towards her.

“Auntie-”

“I foolishly thought he loved me,”

This gave him pause. Why would it matter if he’d loved her when she married for power.

“....Did you love him?”

Zelda pursed her lips slightly, “No. I thought I was winning. If I didn’t love him there was nothing he could do to bring me harm…….I must have loved him a bit. I’d let myself slip.”

Ambrose frowned deeply at the new tone in her voice. Did she blame herself for the Caligari Spell? “The Caligari spell wasn’t your fault Auntie…”

Zelda turned to Ambrose, her eyes piercing him, “I pushed too hard.”

Ambrose’s frown turned to a scowl, “Aunt Zee, there is nothing you could have done that would have justified such a spell.”

His aunt’s eyes held his for a long moment before she turned back to the bird, watching the escaped fluid drip onto the floor between her shoes, refusing to utter what she’d pushed. What could she have been so determined to achieve that Father Blackwood would find the need to silence her via a Caligari Spell. What wouldn’t she be willing to tell him she’d done, surely it was a good thing if Blackwood had felt the need to make her a living doll over it.

The answer hit him like the book to the bird - his execution. She had tried to prevent his execution. She _had_ tried to help him and she had paid the price for it. “Oh, Auntie…..” 

Her lower lip began to tremble again and a few tears slipped free, joining the embalming liquid at her feet, her voice only a whisper, “I-I didn’t play his game well enough and I almost killed you Ambrose. I’m so sorry… I am so so _terribly_ sorry. My insolence -”

Ambrose quickly seized his aunt into a hug, burying his nose into the soft hair that got trapped on her shoulder from his sudden embrace. She _had_ tried to save him. He had been so scared that she’d gone along with Father Blackwood and his idea that he’d killed the Anti-Pope. Sabrina and Aunt Hilda had stated that she seemed to believe he was guilty - that she’d stated he was “covered in blood, dagger in hand.” He knew it was logical for her to believe that he’d committed the crime, but it had ripped his heart to shreds. She was the mother he’d never had. He thought she knew him better than anyone and she’d thought he killed a man. But, she didn’t. She’d tried to save him. She’d believed him. She’d tried to defend him with vigor enough that Blackwood had put a spell on her. 

His arms tightened around her as he started to cry and her’s held him close, shaking against him with her own cries. “I’m so sorry, Auntie…”

She shook her head against his and kissed his head where she could reach in their embrace, keeping him close as their tears mingled in each other’s hair. His fingers clutched at the fabric of the back of her dress, not wanting to leave her arms ever again, feeling regressed to a little boy who had lost her at the park when he’d ran away, only to find her again when he thought he’d be alone, wandering the mulch under his feet forever. He didn’t want to think about what she’d had to endure through the Caligari Spell. It had been her and Blackwood’s honeymoon. They had gone back to the academy. It had been weeks. Weeks she’d spent trapped after defending him and he knew his Auntie, being trapped was a fate worse than death for her. “It’s my fault….”

A low growl rose from Zelda’s throat as she held him closer, her voice thick, “No. He would have done it regardless. I was stupid to think he’d simply want to dance to the tune of a music box….”

“I’m gonna kill him.”

He felt his aunt stiffen against him, her voice clearing as the wheels in her head began to turn almost audibly. “No. Bring him to me. He will pay for the atrocities he’s committed against this family.”

Ambrose nodded and brought his hand up to wipe away the tears from his face, pulling away to look at her, “I will, Auntie.”

She nodded, the fire back in her eyes, back in her body, searing her soul with the need for vengeance. “He won’t get away with this.”

He nodded as she took his chin in her hand with a supreme gentleness that felt angelic against her gaze, “It’s time you got some sleep, Ambrose. You’ll need rest if you’re to go with Prudence.”

She was right. Although, his nerves had already kept him up this long. 

His aunt’s eyes searched his before her hands left him, leaving spots of cold where she’d once been as she moved to wash her hands, beginning to fix up a potion once she’d finished. 

“Come. Let’s get you to bed,” She said once she had the potion in hand.

He followed her up the stairs to his room, where she handed him the potion to drink, lifting his blankets. He couldn’t help but grin as he took the sleeping potion and crawled into bed, his formidable aunt tucking him in like he’d watched sweet Aunt Hilda do to Sabrina night after night, before she sat down on the bed beside him. Her fingers trailed over his face and hair, lulling his eyes shut as the potion began to ebb away at his consciousness, the feeling of her fingers and her voice the only thing tying him to the world as he began to drift.

“You are a good boy, Ambrose. A strong Spellman. Your mother would have been proud…..I certainly am.” 

He smiled, feeling the welcome darkness overtaking him as she kissed his forehead, whispering her goodnight. He would find Blackwood. He would become the warlock he’d always wanted to be. He would bring her and this family pride. He would make her sacrifice worth it. He would become the free Ambrose Spellman.

**Author's Note:**

> I've taken a lot of direct influences and phrases (including the title) from the 1920's German horror film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" as I'm positive that this is the movie that inspired the spell's name. 
> 
> This fic is one that ties the CAOS canon universe to my own AWBAN universe. <3


End file.
